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printing, in the only sense with which we are at present concerned, differs from most if not from all the arts and crafts represented in the exhibition | en |
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in being comparatively modern. | en |
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for although the chinese took impressions from wood blocks engraved in relief for centuries before the woodcutters of the netherlands, by a similar process | en |
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produced the block books, which were the immediate predecessors of the true printed book, | en |
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the invention of movable metal letters in the middle of the fifteenth century may justly be considered as the invention of the art of printing. | en |
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and it is worth mention in passing that, as an example of fine typography, | en |
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the earliest book printed with movable types, the gutenberg, or "forty-two line bible" of about 1455, | en |
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has never been surpassed. | en |
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printing, then, for our purpose, may be considered as the art of making books by means of movable types. | en |
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now, as all books not primarily intended as picture-books consist principally of types composed to form letterpress, | en |
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it is of the first importance that the letter used should be fine in form; | en |
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especially as no more time is occupied, or cost incurred, in casting, setting, or printing beautiful letters | en |
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than in the same operations with ugly ones. | en |
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and it was a matter of course that in the middle ages, when the craftsmen took care that beautiful form should always be a part of their productions whatever they were, | en |
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the forms of printed letters should be beautiful, and that their arrangement on the page should be reasonable and a help to the shapeliness of the letters themselves. | en |
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the middle ages brought calligraphy to perfection, and it was natural therefore | en |
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that the forms of printed letters should follow more or less closely those of the written character, and they followed them very closely. | en |
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the first books were printed in black letter, i.e. the letter which was a gothic development of the ancient roman character, | en |
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and which developed more completely and satisfactorily on the side of the "lower-case" than the capital letters; | en |
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the "lower-case" being in fact invented in the early middle ages. | en |
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the earliest book printed with movable type, the aforesaid gutenberg bible, is printed in letters which are an exact imitation | en |
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of the more formal ecclesiastical writing which obtained at that time; this has since been called "missal type," | en |
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and was in fact the kind of letter used in the many splendid missals, psalters, etc., produced by printing in the fifteenth century. | en |
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but the first bible actually dated (which also was printed at maintz by peter schoeffer in the year 1462) | en |
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imitates a much freer hand, simpler, rounder, and less spiky, and therefore far pleasanter and easier to read. | en |
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on the whole the type of this book may be considered the ne-plus-ultra of gothic type, | en |
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especially as regards the lower-case letters; and type very similar was used during the next fifteen or twenty years not only by schoeffer, | en |
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but by printers in strasburg, basle, paris, lubeck, and other cities. | en |
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but though on the whole, except in italy, gothic letter was most often used | en |
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a very few years saw the birth of roman character not only in italy, but in germany and france. | en |
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in 1465 sweynheim and pannartz began printing in the monastery of subiaco near rome, | en |
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and used an exceedingly beautiful type, which is indeed to look at a transition between gothic and roman, | en |
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but which must certainly have come from the study of the twelfth or even the eleventh century mss. | en |
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they printed very few books in this type, three only; but in their very first books in rome, beginning with the year 1468, | en |
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they discarded this for a more completely roman and far less beautiful letter. | en |
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but about the same year mentelin at strasburg began to print in a type which is distinctly roman; | en |
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and the next year gunther zeiner at augsburg followed suit; | en |
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while in 1470 at paris udalric gering and his associates turned out the first books printed in france, also in roman character. | en |
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the roman type of all these printers is similar in character, | en |
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and is very simple and legible, and unaffectedly designed for use; but it is by no means without beauty. | en |
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it must be said that it is in no way like the transition type of subiaco, | en |
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and though more roman than that, yet scarcely more like the complete roman type of the earliest printers of rome. | en |
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a further development of the roman letter took place at venice. | en |
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john of spires and his brother vindelin, followed by nicholas jenson, began to print in that city, | en |
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1469, 1470; | en |
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their type is on the lines of the german and french rather than of the roman printers. | en |
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of jenson it must be said that he carried the development of roman type as far as it can go: | en |
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his letter is admirably clear and regular, but at least as beautiful as any other roman type. | en |
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after his death in the "fourteen eighties," or at least by 1490, printing in venice had declined very much; | en |
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and though the famous family of aldus restored its technical excellence, rejecting battered letters, | en |
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and paying great attention to the "press work" or actual process of printing, | en |
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yet their type is artistically on a much lower level than jenson's, and in fact | en |
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they must be considered to have ended the age of fine printing in italy. | en |
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jenson, however, had many contemporaries who used beautiful type, | en |
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some of which -- as, e.g., that of jacobus rubeus or jacques le rouge -- is scarcely distinguishable from his. | en |
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it was these great venetian printers, together with their brethren of rome, milan, | en |
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parma, and one or two other cities, who produced the splendid editions of the classics, which are one of the great glories of the printer's art, | en |
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and are worthy representatives of the eager enthusiasm for the revived learning of that epoch. by far, | en |
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the greater part of these italian printers, it should be mentioned, were germans or frenchmen, working under the influence of italian opinion and aims. | en |
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it must be understood that through the whole of the fifteenth and the first quarter of the sixteenth centuries | en |
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the roman letter was used side by side with the gothic. | en |
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even in italy most of the theological and law books were printed in gothic letter, | en |
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which was generally more formally gothic than the printing of the german workmen, | en |
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many of whose types, indeed, like that of the subiaco works, are of a transitional character. | en |
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this was notably the case with the early works printed at ulm, and in a somewhat lesser degree at augsburg. | en |
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in fact gunther zeiner's first type (afterwards used by schussler) is remarkably like the type of the before-mentioned subiaco books. | en |
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in the low countries and cologne, which were very fertile of printed books, gothic was the favorite. | en |
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the characteristic dutch type, as represented by the excellent printer gerard leew, is very pronounced and uncompromising gothic. | en |
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this type was introduced into england by wynkyn de worde, caxton's successor, | en |
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and was used there with very little variation all through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and indeed into the eighteenth. | en |
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most of caxton's own types are of an earlier character, though they also much resemble flemish or cologne letter. | en |
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after the end of the fifteenth century the degradation of printing, especially in germany and italy, | en |
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went on apace; and by the end of the sixteenth century there was no really beautiful printing done: | en |
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the best, mostly french or low-country, was neat and clear, but without any distinction; | en |
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the worst, which perhaps was the english, was a terrible falling-off from the work of the earlier presses; | en |
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and things got worse and worse through the whole of the seventeenth century, so that in the eighteenth printing was very miserably performed. | en |
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in england about this time, an attempt was made (notably by caslon, who started business in london as a type-founder in 1720) | en |
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to improve the letter in form. | en |
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caslon's type is clear and neat, and fairly well designed; | en |
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he seems to have taken the letter of the elzevirs of the seventeenth century for his model: | en |
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type cast from his matrices is still in everyday use. | en |
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in spite, however, of his praiseworthy efforts, printing had still one last degradation to undergo. | en |
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the seventeenth century founts were bad rather negatively than positively. | en |
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but for the beauty of the earlier work they might have seemed tolerable. | en |
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it was reserved for the founders of the later eighteenth century to produce letters which are positively ugly, and which, it may be added, | en |
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are dazzling and unpleasant to the eye owing to the clumsy thickening and vulgar thinning of the lines: | en |
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for the seventeenth-century letters are at least pure and simple in line. the italian, bodoni, and the frenchman, didot, | en |
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were the leaders in this luckless change, though our own baskerville, who was at work some years before them, went much on the same lines; | en |
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but his letters, though uninteresting and poor, are not nearly so gross and vulgar as those of either the italian or the frenchman. | en |
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with this change the art of printing touched bottom, | en |
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so far as fine printing is concerned, though paper did not get to its worst till about 1840. | en |
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the chiswick press in 1844 revived caslon's founts, printing for messrs. longman the diary of lady willoughby. | en |
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this experiment was so far successful that about 1850 messrs. miller and richard of edinburgh | en |
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were induced to cut punches for a series of "old style" letters. | en |
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these and similar founts, cast by the above firm and others, | en |
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have now come into general use and are obviously a great improvement on the ordinary "modern style" in use in england, which is in fact the bodoni type | en |
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a little reduced in ugliness. the design of the letters of this modern "old style" leaves a good deal to be desired, | en |
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and the whole effect is a little too gray, owing to the thinness of the letters. | en |
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it must be remembered, however, that most modern printing is done by machinery on soft paper, and not by the hand press, | en |
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and these somewhat wiry letters are suitable for the machine process, which would not do justice to letters of more generous design. | en |
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